


took my baby's heart (laid him down, bloody)

by lqbys



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Murder, Polyamory, Tragedy, the wonders of writer's block by yours truly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 05:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19846780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lqbys/pseuds/lqbys
Summary: Zoro loved Sanji like the moon loved the sun, but he loved Luffy just the same and now, bloody handed, Luffy could never love them back.





	took my baby's heart (laid him down, bloody)

"You killed the Prince." 

Luffy sneezed and gave blessings to himself in a hushed voice. Zoro felt a very distinct feeling clogging his arteries until he felt like his lungs didn't do their job anymore but couldn't _name_ it. 

"You killed the Prince," he whispered again, and this time Luffy did look up. 

"Duh." 

The tower was high and mighty, perfect to keep death-row prisoners from vanishing into thin air, but not that great of a place to hide from an entire kingdom. 

Zoro's silk tunic felt horribly sticky. There was sweat trickling down his nape—his heart beating too fast. "They're gonna hunt you down." 

A loud clatter resonated against the centuries-old stone of the Tower. His chambers, or at least that was what both Father, Mother and Zoro had agreed to call it. The teeth-missing peasants and pissy nobles, well—they were right to call it prison.

"Oh, sorry," Luffy laughed, sheepish, but wasn't in the slightest.

The warm afternoon sun coming from the single window of his room turned his skin golden, scared and rough but pretty. He bent down to pick up the fallen swords in one swift motion, grinning. 

"But cool swords, dude. Mind if I borrow 'em later?" 

Did he use a sword, in the throne hall? Did he look right into Germa's crown prince's eyes as he pushed a dagger right between his ribs? Did he tell him he loved him, one last time, or was he cold, detached?

Zoro's heart didn't want to shut up. It didn't make sense. Luffy's fingers brushed the edge of Shusui and some part of Zoro wanted to reach out and stop him—stop, it's cursed, it'll bite you, it'll kill you. 

Just like you killed Sanji.

Zoro's knees felt like they'd give up on him if he tried moving. He could hear it, the distant shouting of guards, the thumping of soldiers boots. Warhorses speeding from one country to another. Luffy was impassive. There was scratches and grazes on his shins but he didn't try healing himself. His bloody, muddied clothes were ruining Zoro's fine, delicate carpet.

Zoro watched droplets fall down one after the other and wondered if they were Sanji's.

"They're coming," he deadpanned; he was speaking, but it didn't feel like it. Dissociating was easier than grieving. "The Royal army, they'll hunt you down. You killed the Prince." 

Luffy, for all the ways in which he lacked the ability to take anything seriously, death, danger and traditions included, could sense others' sorrow. He stopped; dirty hands falling still, and eyes black as Teach's abysses, shooting Zoro's way.

His lip curled up almost unnoticeably. "Yup. They will." 

It was funny, how quickly it had all fallen apart. One day Luffy was kissing Sanji and Sanji was kissing Zoro and when the sun went down the horizon, they'd all fall asleep in each other's arms in the secret, magic gardens of Vinsmoke Sora. It had started without Luffy, and now it ended because of Luffy. 

Zoro's blood was loud against his temple. Sanji's crowning day was to happen soon; and Judge, frightening, mighty and disdainful Judge had agreed to offer his youngest son's hand in marriage to Wano's young prince, Roronoa Zoro.

And Luffy had been so happy—he'd laughed so, so bright and loud, kissing them both like they were the sun and the moon and nothing could ruin that. Zoro had kept the memory of Sanji's smile against Luffy's neck tucked in his heart like his most cherished treasure.

Now Sanji was dead, and Luffy felt like a stranger. It hardly seemed real—Zoro didn't feel real.

Strawhat tipped his head back, studying a crack in the ceiling. Three golden hoops hung from his right ear; the ones Sanji had offered the both of them a while ago. Promises of youth bearing no real weight; when they caught the sun's rays and twinkled, Zoro's stomach twisted viciously. 

"You gotta get out of here," he urged; to whom, Zoro couldn't tell, and maybe he too felt like running far away, but Luffy _had_ to flee. 

He wasn't looking at him. Jumping from his bed to his desk, the sounds of his sandals like gunshots to Zoro's ears; he stood, dazed and on the blink of breaking down, watching Luffy leave filthy traces of himself everywhere around. Like he had in Sanji's room—like he had in the great, shadowy corridors of the Roronoa castle. Like he had in their lives, their hearts—their everything.

Luffy snorted. "You kicking me out, Zoro?" 

Zoro felt dirty. Soiled. The same hands that had caressed and held their bodies as if they were made of crystal—stained with Sanji's blood.

In a few hours the whole country would know; in a few days Luffy will be beheaded where his traitor of a brother had been. The old ones said blood will always tell, and today it told the tale of a boy murdering his lover's childhood sweetheart the week before their marriage.

And Zoro, the gods be damned, didn't— _couldn't_ —hate him.

He shook his head, lips pursed down. Tongue feeling heavy and numb in his mouth, a sour taste in the back of his throat, (and the faint, fleeting feeling of relief that even though Sanji was gone, Luffy—wild-eyed, impulsive and obscene Luffy—was still there.) 

"Yes. You have to get out of here, or," what? what if Father found his son with the criminal, the wildling who'd just murdered Vinsmoke Sanji minutes ago? "—or they'll know."

That I can't kill you even if I have to; that I'm afraid, so afraid I can't move. He must've looked pathetic; all clad in elegant, fine robes, a touch of fairy dust on his cheekbones to highlight their sharpness and beauty. Such a stark, bitter contrast with the boy and his filthy face, in nothing but sandals and torn rags. 

If Zoro had bothered, he would've remembered that under the dirt, behind the storm in the wildling's eyes, there was a boy whose heart had turned black from young age. 

It didn't have to do with blood magic, it didn't have to do with his brother's crimes, or the barbaric lands from which he'd come (or maybe it did, and Zoro and Sanji hadn't bothered.) 

If Zoro had bothered, he would've seen it coming.

"I don't really care, tho," Luffy replied—grinning, as casual as he'd always been. "Let 'em come. Gonna be fun." 

They'd kissed and held each other countless of nights, whether the stars shone or the skies wept. When they were young and running through the elven woods with Sanji's smile warming his heart and Luffy's laughter his inspiration, Zoro thought about forever. 

But he'd been selfish, greedy, and thought that marrying Sanji wouldn’t change anything between them. That they'd build themselves a big castle whose secret passages and narrow corridors Luffy'd know by heart; their bed big enough for three and their servants, loyal to a fault, wouldn't question why the Kings let such a farmer boy roam around free, eat as much as he liked, and behave like he owned every piece of land in the country.

He realized, perhaps too late, that Luffy wasn't a secret they could keep from the world. That he was a force of nature; a volcano, a summer storm, a comet—and to assume they could resume his existence to their own little secret was so, so foolish.

"How could you do that?" 

Zoro's voice didn't sound like his, too weak, too vulnerable. He was holding it together, barely, for the shock had yet to wear off. But when it'd come; when he'd realize fully the horror of it all, Zoro knew he wouldn't ever, ever love the sun—or anyone—again.

"How could you do that to Sanji?" His lip quivered. He wouldn't cry, not now. Not in front of Sanji's murderer. "—to _me_?"

Luffy was a nobody from a far-away land which tongue had been long forgotten and people left to starve to death some hundred years ago. Zoro's grandfather liked to call them apes, half-breeds, savages—in the short second during which Luffy lifted his chin to look at him straight in the eyes—Zoro understood _why_. 

But Luffy was Luffy, and like always, he smiled and every bit of ugliness Zoro thought he had seen vanished instantly. 

"Cuz you wanted me to, didn't you?" he replied—so, so easily.

Zoro felt like throwing up.

(Luffy's mouth was hot, wet and the slightest flick of his tongue could bring Zoro to paradise. His teeth, sharp little things, grazed the sensitive, already bruising skin of his neck just enough to leave him shuddering hard. 

Zoro had never been the loud one in bed, but there was an intensity in Luffy's thrusts which wasn't there the last three, four times they had sex. He'd feel ashamed of the lewd noises he made as he got pounded right into his mattress later; the world could crumble and return to dust and Zoro wouldn't give a single mind about it. 

Not right now, not with Luffy's body wrapped around his and the trail of kisses he left from his neck to his shoulder blades. 

"Do that—fuck—again," he urged; his voice cracked, low and dripping, panting a little. 

Luffy happily, wordlessly complied; with bruising force he gripped his hips and pulled his ass right back onto his cock. Zoro's entire being _trembled_.

Luffy's damp forehead pressed against his equally damp nape, his chest flush to his back—its rough texture caused by scar-tissue and magic wounds sending sparks of electricity in his veins. The slow, languid rhythm Luffy stubbornly kept was driving Zoro crazy, and his complete silence save for little grunts was half turning him on and half pissing him off. But Zoro didn't dwell on it much, because his body was still sore and sensitive from the morning's fuck with Sanji, and Luffy had already made him cum _twice_ tonight—all in all, there was hardly any coherent thought left in his brain.

He was almost sobbing—not quite there, but so very close he needed to come now or he'd lose his mind. Then it happened again; a blow straight to his prostate that punched broken moans out of him as he rutted helplessly against his sheets. "—Luffy, Luffy; _Luffy_." 

Zoro was _glad_ it didn't take the usual strong grip around his cock and rough stroke for him to spill all over his sheets with a strangled cry, face pressed against his pillows. 

Luffy fucked into him until he, too, came, teeth sunk into his shoulder. 

Then he was just dead weight on Zoro; silent, sulking dead weight. Didn't even pull out, which was gross and made Zoro wriggle underneath, but there was no use. "C'mon, Luff. Move," he tried, craning his neck to catch a look at Luffy's face; saw nothing but dark, unwashed locks of hair. Zoro sighed. 

He felt absolutely _wrecked_.

Post-orgasm laziness and the exhaustion of being fucked out of his mind multiple times washed over him and forced him in bed, content. 

Even though they should move—in case a servant walked in, in case Mother and Father came back from their daily hunting session. The Tower wouldn't be the first place they'd visit—and Zoro, their flesh and blood, not the first they'd wish to speak with—but there was still the lingering fear that they'd find out. 

About Luffy. About Luffy in his bed, and Luffy and Sanji's mixed scents in his sheets.

"D'you—d'you ever wish it wasn't like that?" he blurted out, at last, and Zoro snapped his eyes open. Luffy's were evasive, brows furrowed, his bottom lip chewed bloody.

"Like, what?" 

"Dunno. Just—this." 

Zoro clicked his tongue, sarcasm filling his tone. "You mean, us? Sanji and me—me and you, you and Sanji—us?" 

Luffy shook his head. He had moved—now his head rested against Zoro's chest, and this way the latter could truly see how dirty his damn hair was. He didn't even want to think about the rest of him, otherwise Zoro'd feel mortified, truly, to get fucked under his father's roof by a filthy wildling on all-fours like a Northern two-penny whore.

"Where's your hat," he grumbled; when he tried straightening up, Luffy stopped him, nails digging into the skin of his wrist like tiny daggers. "—what." 

"I think you guys shouldn't be getting married." 

Zoro blinked—then he laughed.

_(If Zoro had bothered—if only Zoro had bothered, then—)_

It wasn't jealousy making Luffy's eyes glow red, neither anger; he just stated it like a fact, as if he had a God-given right to do so. As if he and Zoro, Sanji, were of the same kind. They weren't, and in the eyes of the world—perhaps even his own—would never be. Ultimately, that was why they weren't meant to last. 

Zoro shrugged half-heartedly, trying to swallow the slight lump in his throat. 

"I wish we weren't getting married," he muttered, (it wasn't true—Zoro loved Sanji like the moon loved the sun, but he loved Luffy too, and Luffy could never love them back, now). "It's like that. Wish we could do something about it, but none of us can." 

Sheets pooled down Luffy's waist as he shifted, getting up, his face morphing into something entirely else. He wasn't looking at Zoro, not exactly, eyes fixed over the tiny piece of horizon they could see from the Tower's window. Zoro couldn't pinpoint exactly why it all felt so _wrong_ , all of a sudden, but it did and he hated it. 

Luffy looked at him, then; truly looked at him, all traces of his usual cheerfulness and glee wiped from his features. He looked older, colder, but it only lasted a second before his face split in two as he smiled a smile full of teeth. 

"We can, though," he chirped—jumped from the bed, naked and laughing, before Zoro could ask him what he meant by that.)

**Author's Note:**

> i mean at first it was all happy shit like
> 
> -zoro gets married to ugly old king  
> -luffy kills ugly old king bc why tf not  
> -they run away together. 
> 
> The end, but you know. you damn well know


End file.
